A couple of weeks ago the Prince George’s County Police Department announced on their blog that they would be live Tweeting a Vice Sting Operation targeting John’s who choose to solicit the services of prostitutes.
The department made it clear that the targets of the operation would be the Johns, not the sex workers themselves. At the time I applauded the PCPD for this initiative and eagerly looked forward to how they would roll out the live stream of this quality of life and community safety issue. I blogged about it and engaged into the social stream about it and had some great conversations with opponents of the initiative.
There were many detractors of the program that went on the all out offensive against the PGPD and the project. To sum up the opposition it’s pretty simple:
- Upset that the police are trying to interrupt their ability to make a living.
- Upset that the project was going to target the sex workers.
- Upset that the sting would jeopardize future legitimate employment opportunities.
- Very small, very vocal, very concerned group of people. (Few from PGC).
I do applaud the sex workers and their supporters for standing strong in their conviction against the project regardless of the fact they were arguing to legitimize an illegal act.
I found it concerning that they got all worked up over a project that clearly was going to target Johns and not sex workers.
It was humorous that they were ready to blame the PGPD for using social media to out their illegal enterprise which could impact future employment.
Let’s take a step back and look at what the PGPD said they were doing with the sting operation:
“The PGPD’s Vice Unit will conduct a prostitution sting that targets those soliciting prostitutes and we’ll tweet it out as it happens.”
The release went onto say:
“We’re using this progressive, and what we believe unprecedented, social media tactic to warn any potential participants that this type of criminal behavior is not welcome in Prince George’s County.”
Fast forward…the sting happened and not one person was arrested. Kind of unheard of when you consider that the Vice Squad used intelligence led policing to determine the best time and location to conduct the operation. It should have had guaranteed results but it didn’t have any!
And how did the opposition react to the announcement that the sting didn’t produce any results and no one was arrested?? They complained. 
Julie Parker, the PIO for PGPD said this in response to the results:
“The unprecedented advance notice and the intense publicity surrounding it funnelled down to the would-be johns. The few who did initially call to respond to the undercover officers’ ads showed an unusual level of caution; asking more probing questions than is typically seen. In the end, no johns ever showed up.”
One of the core functions of policing and truly the most important function of the police is CRIME PREVENTION.
The greatest measure of the effectiveness of policing is not the statistics that show how much crime has happened and the departments clearance rate of those crimes, but the greatest measure of the effectiveness of policing is the ABSENCE OF CRIME.
In the end, the project was not a failure because of the lack of arrests, the project was a success because crime was absent and it is no doubt the intended use of social media, the extra attention because of the backlash and the courage to try something new that made this project a success.
A final note…I had a couple of great conversations with some of the opponents to the project who disagreed with me and I with them, but we talked openly on the stream. They have some good ideas. I also got my fair share of abuse from people for supporting the program. What was the difference between the two? Openness to see and respect the others thoughts and opinions. You don’t have to agree with them or they with you but you respect each other and conversations can happen. Conversations that can lead to change.
If you look back at the #PGPDVice stream now, you can still see a lot of information and misinformation. If you look real careful, you can also see some great ideas and potential problem solving solutions to crime and disorder management. 
Look for those, work with them and there could be some great futures to this type of activity, live streaming a sting…not prostitution 😉
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